The doors of present day refrigerators are more than mere closures for the interior of the refrigerator. Such doors are increasingly being equipped with electrical and electronic components such as, for example, control panels, ice dispensers, cold water taps, and the like. Accordingly, electrical cabling (e.g., a wire harness) must be provided to the door from the main body of the refrigerator in order to allow the transmission of electrical power and control signals between the door and the main body. For aesthetic and safety purposes, such cabling should not be allowed to loosely drape along its path of travel, but instead should be closely held. It is common to route such cabling, as part of its path of travel, through a hollow hinge pin of the refrigerator door. In the past, the cabling has been routed through the hinge pin and then a connector has subsequently been installed at the distal end of the cabling for later engagement with a mating connector on cabling from the main refrigerator body. However, installing the connector at the end of the cabling during the final assembly of the refrigerator is not an easy task.
One solution is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,362 to Davis et al. that discloses a connector assembly that can be installed on cabling before the cabling is connected to various components within the refrigerator door and thereafter have the cabling, with the connector attached, installed through the hollow hinge pin for subsequent connection with a mating connector on cabling from the refrigerator body.
However, continuing innovations in refrigerator doors, as well as methods for their manufacture and use, may subject the connectors, exposed contacts, and the wires they contain to significant torsional strains, which may in some cases subject the contacts to damage or cause the wires to twist free of the contacts.
Furthermore, connectors are often used to terminate multiple wires and it is important that the person assembling the connector ensures that each wire matches up with a corresponding wire to properly complete a circuit. However, current connector solutions for use in these applications lock the wires and their respective contacts into connector pieces without an opportunity to first review the wire alignment. Thus, errors typically cannot be corrected without breaking the connector and re-stripping and re-terminating the wire or without requiring the use of special tools.
What is needed is an electrical connector system that permits technicians to verify proper wire alignment before locking wires and contacts into a final position, while also protecting the contacts from damage prior to connection, such as permitting a greater range of twisting of the wires to reduce torsional strains.